Wednesday, January 5

Unintentional comedy gold.

(I was just doing a bit of webserver-type housekeeping, and came across something that I tried to post on the 25th of November but which got screwed up and turned into a file called, excitingly, "null" by some sort of bug. So here it is. It's totally out of date, yet still kind of timeless.)

Smacking is a result of a failure of society, in particular capitalist society, rather than of parents.

Parents are forced to use coercive methods against their own children under New Labour, which threatens them with fines or even prison if their child does not conform.

Children are expected to sit exams at the age of seven, and they become targets for advertising much earlier.

There is huge pressure on parents of active children to either physically force or medicate them into socially acceptable silence.

In providing free childcare, free facilities such as leisure centres, libraries and playgrounds, shorter but equally paid working hours and decent housing for all, the use of smacking would be eliminated without legislation.Gaynor Barrett, Exeter